


Cranberry

by Jezunya



Series: The Pepperony100 Challenge [10]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: #82 - Work, F/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, PA!Pepper, Past Tense, Post first movie, pepperony100 challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jezunya/pseuds/Jezunya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper knew it was only a matter of time before someone put two and two together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cranberry

Pepper fidgeted in her seat. She tapped her fingernails against the edge of her Blackberry, forced herself to stop, picked up the notecards Tony had refused to take with him for his presentation, shuffled them through her hands, flipped through them, sorted them, shuffled them back together again. She fought the urge to look at him where he was talking animatedly before the Board at the front of the room, lost, glanced up. Her eyes caught on the very thing she had been trying to ignore and she winced, hands clenching around the notecards. She had hoped that maybe if she could keep from focusing on it, none of the Directors would notice it either. But if she could see it from her seat at the back of the room… 

It was small, but the smudge of lipstick stood out on the white of his collar, looking defiant, proud. Smug, even. A testament that for just one second, she hadn’t looked hard enough, hadn’t cleaned him up quite well enough before sending him up there. 

It was small, though. Maybe no one would… 

No. No, no, _no_. She hadn’t imagined it: Arlene Cedell, a tightlipped, middle-aged woman on the Board with wiry, steel grey hair and eyes set in a permanent narrow glare had let her gaze stray from the screen behind Tony for just a moment and then seemed to do a small double-take. The dark eyes narrowed even further, accentuating the deep crow’s feet at the corners as she zeroed in on the cranberry smudge marring the otherwise pristine fabric. Pepper swallowed, wishing not for the first time that the floor would open beneath her and swallow her whole. 

It wasn’t so much that her boss had gone before the other heads of his company with lipstick smeared on the collar of his nice white shirt. Although Pepper always made an effort to make him presentable and respectable before an important meeting like this, she did occasionally – _occasionally_ – miss some tiny spot of color left over from his latest conquest or whatever impromptu midday entertainment he’d felt the need to go looking for. Usually, whomever he was meeting with would refrain from comment, either because they knew him and his habits and knew that commenting would only open the door to many long, graphic stories about how he’d gotten that smudge and others like it; or because they _didn’t_ actually know him and were too embarrassed by finding out that the tabloid gossip was all too true to say anything about it. It all amounted to the same thing, and Pepper could usually just shake her head and briefly scold herself for not paying closer attention and then go on with her workday. 

She should be thankful, she knew, that such incidents had not occurred in… She didn’t know the exact amount of time, but it had been months and months and anyone who knew anything of Tony could recognize the miracle in that. 

Not that she’d characterize going missing for three months as a ‘miracle.’ But he had come back a changed man. 

Despite how long it had been since the last time Tony showed up to a meeting looking far too triumphant and wearing someone else’s lipstick, Pepper could not just brush this day’s smudge off as merely another Tony-ism. No, today was different, and for one very important reason: the lipstick smeared on Tony Stark’s collar today just happened to be the exact shade that was currently adorning his personal assistant’s lips. 

Pepper knew it was only a matter of time before someone put two and two together.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me [on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
